by Greg Johnson
Chip laughed. “Did he notice you?”
“Not even a glance. I was a piece of furniture. An eye mote. The funny thing was, Abby knew I was up to something, but she thought I had a crush on her best friend, Marilyn Freeman.”
“You mean she didn’t know?”
“That I was gay? Not back then. I barely knew myself.”
That’s when Chip had paused, cleared his throat, and asked about the “others.”
Thom shrugged, ran the tip of his finger along Chip’s jawline. “That’s a tall order,” he said, grinning. “We don’t have time.” His fingers itched to remove Chip’s glasses, gently, and lay them on the bedside table; this had become the signal their lovemaking would begin, no more talking for a while. But something in Chip’s eyes prevented him.
His boyfriend’s placid gray gaze, which just now had seemed tinged with sorrow—the residue, Thom assumed, from the long talk they’d had last night—had fallen back to the yearbook.
Chip said, brushing his fingertips against the opened pages, “It’s amazing, I was five years old when you were having your first great love.”
“Oh, thanks a lot,” Thom said.
Chip grinned, shaking his head. “Sorry.” He kept staring down at the book, but Thom could tell that he wasn’t seeing, really; that he wasn’t quite comfortable. In the past month, spending every weekend together—and even some weeknights when Thom had driven impulsively to Athens just to enjoy a few hours with him—Thom had grown more attuned to his boyfriend’s subtle changes of mood. Though Chip was twenty-five and looked younger, with his sand-colored mop of hair, his glowing skin, the taut lines of his lean, muscular body, Thom had become aware that Chip lacked the impermeable, cheery optimism he often sensed in younger men; in fact, Chip often had quiet spells, when the gray eyes would turn opaque, as if clouded with some obscure hurt. When asked, he would insist he was fine, fine; no, of course Thom hadn’t said anything; he just wasn’t feeling that well…. The next day he would be his affectionate, wryly humorous self, a graduate student in marine biology who planned to get a Ph.D., become a researcher, teach in a university, his career fully mapped out in his logical, tidy mind. Thom sensed that Chip hadn’t necessarily welcomed Thorn’s two or three impulsive visits to Athens, that his life was scheduled and regimented in a way that Thorn’s never had been; but he had been the first, a couple of weeks ago (on Friday, January 29th, as Thom remembered well: just before midnight, as they lay together in this very bed) to say “I love you,” and without hesitation Thom had said “I love you” back. The days since then had been among the happiest of Thorn’s life.
He took a deep breath. “OK, then,” he murmured. “What did you mean…”
“Just that you’ve had these other experiences—other relationships,” Chip said. “And I haven’t.”
“It doesn’t matter, does it?” Thom said. “I mean, except for Roy, none of the others really mattered.”
“No, but last night you said it wasn’t Roy who—” Chip broke off, embarrassed. He’d folded his hands on top of the yearbook and started methodically cracking his knuckles.
Who infected you, Thom thought but didn’t say.
Last night, as they lay bathed in the flickering light of several candles on Thorn’s nightstand, the moment had come: Thom had finally told Chip about his condition. He knew Chip was negative and they should talk, but he’d told himself he was waiting for the right moment. As long as they were fastidious about safe sex—Chip, with his researcher’s mentality and cautious disposition, wouldn’t have wanted any other kind—Thom had supposed there was no hurry. But last night the “right moment” had come unexpectedly when Chip, just as Thom was about to enter him, his eyes half-closed in a passionate tremor of longing, had said, running a finger slowly along the underside of Thorn’s sheathed penis, “It would be nice if we didn’t have to use these things….”
Startled, Thom had drawn back; had given his quick, instinctive grin. “Yeah, but…” His erection had faltered; he felt the blood draining from his face, as well.
As he’d done today, Chip had looked off, leaving Thom to stare at his lover’s handsome, finely etched profile in the flickering dark.
“I’ve gotten tested twice in the past four months,” Chip had said. “The second time was three weeks ago. Both were negative. I haven’t been with anybody else.”
“I know that, but…”
Then Chip did turn to him; Thom was startled by the look of urgency in his face, a sheen of moisture in his eyes. “I mean, we’ve been monogamous for a couple of months now, and I’d like to stay that way. So I was thinking….”
For a moment, Thom could not speak.
Chip said, a slight edge to his voice, “You do trust me, don’t you? I mean, I don’t even know any gay guys in Athens. I’ve been totally buried in work.”
Thom had shaken his head, sadly; he’d run the back of his hand along Chip’s side, his smooth taut skin more wonderful to the touch than anything he could imagine. Then he’d told Chip the details of his condition. He’d tested negative for several years after Roy’s death, and through process of elimination—for there hadn’t been that many others—he’d discovered that a guy named Edward had infected him. A boyfriend he’d been passionate about and who hadn’t wanted to use condoms. Very foolishly, Thom had trusted him.
Only a few months ago, Thom learned that Edward had spent some time last summer in the intensive care ward at Crawford Long; with all his other lovers Thom had used condoms, every single time, and so… He hadn’t told Chip, however, that not only had Edward knowingly infected him; after a few months, he’d also gotten irrationally possessive about Thom, resenting his friendships with Pace and Connie, and especially with Carter, with whom he imagined Thom was having an affair. Finally, Thom had listened to his friends—“That queen is a psycho!” Connie had exclaimed, more than once—and had broken off the romance. Then, for a brief, anxious period, Edward had kept calling, left ominous messages on his voice mail, made vaguely threatening remarks to mutual friends; then he’d simply vanished. But to Thorn’s chagrin he’d begun glimpsing Edward lately around town—gay Atlanta was a small town, after all—but so far Edward had kept his distance, and for that Thom was grateful. He avoided sharing with Chip the more embarrassing recollections of what had happened between him and Edward; everyone had one lunatic passion in his life, Thom supposed, but broadcasting the details was another matter. Chip’s questions naturally had focused on Thorn’s condition, and his medications, and he’d seemed relieved that Thom had suffered no symptoms. In fact, he’d seemed to take the news better than Thom could have hoped.
Finally Thom had asked, “Well, does it matter?” and Chip had said quickly that he loved Thom, of course, and these days HIV was far from a death sentence, and in fact Chip had an art history professor he’d befriended in college who had been diagnosed fifteen years ago and was still doing fine. Living with AIDS these days is like living with diabetes so long as you take your medication and watch your diet and stress, and of course, practice safe sex, so there’s no reason you can’t—
“Whoa, slow down,” Thom had said, laughing. He’d reached across and given Chip a quick, dry kiss. “I believe you, okay?”
They’d talked for another hour, or maybe two hours, and one by one the candles had guttered out, and of course they were too exhausted, emotionally—and physically, for it was almost four A.M. when they said good night—to make love. But on the whole, Thom thought, the discussion he’d been dreading for weeks had gone well. In his darkest fantasies, Chip had drawn back in horror, had run out the door and driven back to Athens and Thom had never heard from him again. Instead, Chip had given him a long hug good night, massaging his shoulders. “I love you, I’m glad you told me,” he’d said, and Thom had fallen asleep with his lover’s quiet, consoling words echoing in his mind.
Now Thom said, laying his hand gently over Chip’s, “Roy was a real lover, we lived together for several years. Edward was mo
re of an obsession, a fatal attraction.” He gave a rueful laugh. “Literally.”
“Don’t say that,” Chip said with a wounded look.
“Sorry, but when I think about Edward, I can either laugh or start tearing the furniture apart.” Despite himself, he laughed again. “I mean, Edward was far and away the best-looking man I’d ever dated. I went around in a kind of daze, wondering what this GQ-type saw in me. Have you ever dated somebody like that, somebody so stunning that you just lost your senses?”
Chip smiled. “You,” he said.
Thom rolled his eyes. “Funny.”
“Well, I guess I did, actually,” Chip said. “When I was still a sophomore, an undergrad, I had this English prof. Or I thought he was a prof—turned out he was a T.A. and hadn’t even finished his doctorate. But he was gorgeous, so I kept stopping by his office for ‘help’ with Emily Dickinson’s poetry.” Chip laughed. “He wasn’t stupid, so after the third or fourth time he invited me back to his place, and within half an hour he was fucking me like a wild man. I did make him use a condom, though,” Chip said, looking anxiously at Thom as though afraid he’d spoken too frankly. “I don’t know what I’d have done if he’d refused. I was pretty young, and totally infatuated.”
“You were still in his class?” Thom asked, amazed.
“Yeah,” Chip said with his mischievous grin. “And I got an A, though I never did understand a line Emily Dickinson wrote.”
Thom shook his head. “So how did it end?”
“Badly. One Saturday night he wanted to visit Atlanta—to go dancing at Back Street, or so he said. That’s when I discovered he was a raving alcoholic. He must have started drinking long before he picked me up, because he kept running his little Hyundai a few feet off the road, saying ‘oops,’ then overcompensating and coming pretty close to head-on collisions in the opposite lane. By the time we got to a restaurant in Atlanta I needed a few drinks myself.”
While Chip talked Thorn’s mind drifted to Connie, whom he’d never seen as drunk as the man Chip was describing but who’d been drinking more lately; and taking a lot of prescription pills. Medication for depression, for anxiety, for sleep, for his “headaches”… Thom hoped Warren was keeping an eye on him, but Connie was both stubborn and crafty, he was always slipping off “to the bathroom,” where Thom suspected he was rifling through the assortment of pharmaceuticals he kept in his pant pockets like loose change. The last time they’d gone to Key West together, Connie was getting dressed for dinner and had tossed his walking shorts on the bed: a spray of pink, green, and white pills had cascaded onto the bedspread.
“I trust that was your last date with your English teacher,” Thom said. Idly he began stroking Chip’s arm, remembering why he’d maneuvered them in here.
“No, but it was the last time I let him drive me anywhere.” He tossed the yearbook aside. As it hit the bed, Thom saw something slip out, what looked like a newspaper clipping. Chip didn’t notice. He glanced at his watch. “Gosh, it’s past six,” he said. “Wasn’t Abby coming at six?”
He stood and stretched his arms. Thom stayed on the bed, crestfallen. Mitzi and Chloe, hearing the louder tone of Chip’s voice, had raced inside the room and were scampering around them.
“Hey, girls,” Chip said, bending down to them.
The doorbell rang, and Thom supposed it was Abby. He glanced at his own watch and saw that yes, it was later than he thought. As though she’d caught the disease from Connie, his sister was late for everything these days. The punctual schoolteacher had turned into a rushed, somewhat impulsive Abby Sadler who seemed always out of breath, arriving with a flurry of apologies and explanations, most of which sounded as flimsy as Connie’s. Was she mimicking him, unconsciously?—during the past few weeks she and Connie had grown closer than ever, along with their new pal, Valerie Patten. The three hung out together so much, Connie had become fond of saying, “Hi, we’re the three Mouseketeers—my name is Annette!” But Abby spent much of her time on her own, too, seeing various “new friends” she’d made at Emory. Now that she’d decided to pursue her doctorate she’d begun hanging around the English department, she said, getting to know the graduate students and the newer professors hired since she’d gotten her master’s. And she socialized with other, unnamed old friends from high school, and went shopping for clothes and books and for the minimally furnished condo she’d rented here in Thorn’s own complex.
That news had surprised and displeased Thom, though he’d tried to disguise his reaction. Within just a few days she’d signed the lease and had bought a red Altima that was nearly identical to the one she’d been renting, and she had asked one of her former colleagues in Bucks County, an older woman she’d once introduced to Lucille in the hope they might become friends, to box up some of her belongings and ship them down. Their mother had made surprisingly little fuss, Abby told him, and had even helped Mrs. Pargiter pack the boxes. Abby added that when she and Thom flew to Philadelphia, they could drive back in Abby’s old Buick, and then she could sell the car…. He’d felt bereft that she was moving out, and so abruptly. Living with him, she’d helped to compensate for the gaping absence in his life left by Carter.
Tonight she seemed in her usual high spirits. Even her walk seemed different now, Thom noticed. These days she practically bounced into a room, and with her new clothes and hairstyle (the cut was shorter but wavier, the honey-tinted auburn a shade lighter) she appeared younger by eight or ten years than she’d looked a few weeks ago. The other night, over dinner at Babette’s with Valerie and Connie, Valerie had bent toward Thom and made a joke about “keeping your sister in line”—Connie had been insisting absurdly that Abby was making eyes at the waiter, and that the waiter was leering back at her—and Thom hadn’t even bothered to correct her. He did feel like Abby’s older, somewhat stolid big brother, these days.
“You look nice,” she said, greeting Thom as he shuffled behind Chip into the living room. She stood on tiptoes to kiss his cheek.
“Come on, I just got home,” he said. “Had a closing that sort of went haywire. I haven’t even showered and changed.”
“Oh, the five o’clock shadow looks handsome on you,” Abby said. “What do you think, Chip?”
Chip tilted his head in mock appraisal. “Yes, and the mussed hair is a nice touch, too. He looks raffish—like he might be dangerous.”
Abby and Chip laughed while Thom stared back at them, smiling. Their hair and faces shone. His sister and boyfriend looked ready for the choir, whereas he felt old and jaded. And tired.
“I should make the two of you cook dinner, then,” he said.
They did follow him into the kitchen and helped as much as he allowed. Cooking soothed his nerves; he really preferred to be alone while making dinner, letting his mind relax and expand into a state of meditative calm as he chopped, boiled, poured, and diced, ambling peaceably about the room searching out utensils and ingredients, dropping an occasional tidbit into the dogs’ eager mouths and jerking his fingertips clear, just in time, from the alligator-like snap of their jaws. Tonight, just to keep the others involved, he’d say, “Abby, would you check the spice rack for the oregano?” or “Chip, honey, want to hunt down the salad bowl for me, the wooden one?—I think it’s in that big drawer under the oven.” But mostly Abby and Chip leaned back against the opposite counter, sipping their glasses of Merlot, chatting and laughing as Thom worked.
To Thorn’s surprise, Abby brought up a normally avoided topic: their mother.
“We had a great talk today,” she said, airily. “She said to tell you happy Valentine’s.”
“Really?” The usual stab of guilt. “I should have sent her a card.”
“Don’t worry, I did—and I signed your name,” Abby said.
“You did? You forgot to tell me.”
“I know—sorry.” She laughed. “I even changed the handwriting, so it looked like you really signed it.”
Thom looked over, startled. “Are you serious?”
She gave a brief, chagrined smile. “It was just an impulse. You don’t mind, do you? She’s been so friendly lately on the phone and has kept asking about you, so I thought…”
Thom stared down at the chicken breasts, coating them with a mix of oregano and fresh ground pepper. “I’d have signed it myself, if you’d just asked me.”
“I know, I should have,” Abby said, “but it was Wednesday, and I wanted it to get there today, so I just went ahead.”
“OK, it doesn’t matter. As long as the card makes her happy.”
“I think it will,” Abby said. “And you know, she actually said she was happy for me—you know, about my going back to school, and that you and I were living in the same complex. She might come to visit sometime soon.”
“That’s good, maybe she—” Thom broke off. He hadn’t been listening closely, but now he heard. How smoothly Abby had brought the information out.
“What did you say? She might what?”
“She’s not sure,” Abby said quickly. “Maybe sometime in the spring. She said something about the azaleas. The dogwood festival.”
Thom laughed angrily. “Since when did she care about that stuff? That was Daddy’s interest, not hers.”
“Well, Thom…”
The doorbell rang, and Abby brought Connie, Warren, and Valerie back to the kitchen, where they sipped wine and talked brightly while Thom put the finishing touches on the meal. Finally he herded them into the dining nook, asked Chip and Abby to set the table, and got the others working on the salad, the Italian garlic bread. Normally there would be an hour for cocktails, but tonight they’d gathered specifically to plan their trip to Key West—which they’d plotted, and delayed, and plotted again for weeks—and Thom didn’t want the others, particularly Connie, to drink too much, or for the party to drag much past ten o’clock. These past few months Thom had felt his energy eroding, day by day, and lately he’d gotten more possessive of his time. Especially when Chip was around.
